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Take a trip down memory lane!

Kids TV today - they just don't make them like they used to! Remember coming home from school at 3.30 and plonking yourself in front of the telly to watch Philip Schofield and Ed the duck in the CBBC broom cupboard or tuning into CITV? Aah the good old days - brings back some fond memories! Surfing the internet one day a few years ago, when I was a university student, I came across 80's nostalgia.com. Now here's a site to while away the hours when you're supposed to be figuring out how to do your organic chemistry coursework! The site brings you the best of the 80's, featuring classic tv, 80's memories, computer games and more!

80's nostalgia.com appears to be a one-man effort by someone who calls themselves 'ColonelK' and for a one-man effort I have to say that the amount of work that has gone into this has been phenomenal. It is mainly aimed at people who grew up in the 80's. To look at the site isn't at all flashy. It is simply made of a series of text based hyperlinks and pictures. Compared to other sites now on the internet nowadays it does look a bit dated, but don't let that put you off! On the left hand side is the main menu, which is a series of hyperlinks to different sections of the site. These include:

The Message BoardHere you can discuss your memories of growing up in the 80's, talk about telly in the 80's, going to school in the 80's and a forum for when you annoyingly can't remember something about life back then and need reminding. The forums appear to be fairly active, indicating the site is well used.

Classic TVThis is my favourite section of the website. I have spent many hours happily surfing here. Clicking on this link leads to a page with an alphabetical list of mainly children's programmes that were aired throughout the decade. These include Bananaman, SuperTed, Rainbow, Button Moon, Trap Door and arguably the best cartoon series of all time The Mysterious Cities of Gold to name but a few. Many of these I'd clean forgotten about and spent quite a lot of time doing the old 'Oh Yeah!'

Each item in the list is also a link, which leads to another page. This contains a summary of the program and some background information. On the right hand side of this page is another submenu on which there are links to pictures from the programme, sounds (such as the theme tune or audio snippets from parts of different episodes), a characters page detailing pictures of each of the characters in the programme and movie clips of parts of various episodes. I've spent many hours in this section reminiscing and it's all great fun!

Child of the 80'sI'm sure most people would have seen something along the lines of this. 'You know you were a child of the 80's if......' I think most of these refer to the early 80's as I couldn't relate to most of these!

80's bargainsThis section leads to an ebay page listing many toys and games that children played with in the 80's. This changes from time to time and at the moment is mainly focussed on the very first gameboys.

TV advertsAnother area where I have whiled away many hours! This section focuses on tv adverts that were shown at the time. Remember the 5-4-3-2-1 or the Um Bungo adverts? I watched most of them but could only remember a few of them which I think were shown in the late 80's.

Other areas include Celeb interviews with some stars of the 80's including Roland the Rat(!) and an area where you can play computer games from the 80's - I've only had a brief look at this and it's amazing how far technology has now come. The graphics at the time were truly awful! There are also links to other 80's dedicated websites, many of which I've never visited and will certainly be doing so in the not too distant future.

It's not a particularly flashy website and you can tell that it's an individual effort but the content is amazing. Imagine the effort this person has gone to, to collect pictures, audios and episode clips, many of which would have had to be transferred from VHS!

The site is logically designed and easy to navigate. However I have to admit that some of the pages do look a bit cluttered. The only thing that lets the site down is that several of the links are broken, which does make things frustrating. There is a note on the classic tv page however saying that they are in the process of moving the site to a different server and this may be the cause. I don't know how long this will take, but the message has been on for quite a while. Another annoying thing is that there are several programmes listed on the Classic TV page which don't have links. I know that this is an individual's effort but I think they maybe should be removed until further information is found on that particular programme.

Overall though the site is great fun and I recommend checking it out - you'll spend many happy hours chuckling and reminiscing!

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80s nostalgia.com is a fantastic site. There are loads of different sections, such as Classic Tv, Speccy Games, 80s memories, 80s dictionary, On This Day. There is a message board where you can leave questions or comment on other peoples questions. So if theres something you really need to know about a programme or product you cant quite remember someone out there will know the answer!! Theres also a chat forum. My favorite bits are Classic TV and Speccy Games. If you were growing up in the eighties then this is the site for you. If you remember the Adventure Game, Jamie and The Magic Torch and so on then you must visit this site!

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If you love the 80's then you will love this site! It is well presented and easy to use. There is so much information on this site, enough to keep you amused for hours. There is a large section on 80's TV programmes, including favourites like the A-Team, HeMan and Worzel Gummidge. You can download pictures and sounds from the programmes and there is also a lot of information about individual characters in programmes. It also has a list of merchandise available and where you can buy it from. Who could forget those good old spectrum games!?! Well here you can play them all online including Dizzy and Paperboy. Thee is a section on 80's music, unfortunately this is under constructionat the moment but usually you can listen to all those 80's hits once again. If you are really interested you can also find out what happened on this day in the 80's. The 80's dictionary on this site bring back loads of memories of stuff I used to say when I was a kid!! There is also quite a good section on memories of the 80's - who could forget the rubiks cube very frustrating, I still havn't finished mine!! There is also stuff about the Peter and Jane books,which helped me learn to read! and also stuff about the favourite board game mouse trap and bmx bikes. There is also a message board and chat room, where you can chat to other children of the 80's. For anyone growing up in the 80's this site is brilliant and it brings back lots of good memories and some laughs.

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Can you remember when you watched the A-Team every saturday night and He-Man was the master of the universe. The days when Yuppies were the only people with mobile phones, and they had to be carried around in bags! When you spent days fiddling with the "bodacious" rubik cube. Those were the 80's. Probably the worst decade ever, but still one that I look back at with happiness. Well now I can relive those days simply by logging onto this site, www.80snostalgia.com. The first subject that is dealt with on this site is "Classic TV". This section has a comprehensive A-Z list of almost every TV program you can think of from the 80's. Some you can click on to get further information on them. You can get pictures, sounds, movie clips and character biogrophies as well as a description of the program itself. However not all programs have this option. This is a shame as I would love to see the Tenage Mutant Hero Turtles at it again. This dissapointment was overcome however when I saw the Thundercats link! There is a description of the program and pictures of all the characters. It all came flooding back to me! Overall this section is amazing. There are a few missing pieces which could improve the Classic TV section but its still great as it is. The site is constantly being updated and improved so you can always come back again later to see if your favourite program has been added. Also, if you cannot see a particular favourite, you can send them an email and they will do their best to post it as soon as possible! Thundercats - HOOOO!!! The next section is dedicated to the Sinclair Spectrum. I was one of those (un)lucky enough to own one of these marvels of technology. This site brings back the memories of rubber keys, 10 minute loading times, frequent crashing, and yes, Jet Set Willy. Like the TV section their is an A-Z list of all the most influential Spectrum classics, but this time, as well as just telling you about the game and showing you some pictures, you can play the games! Via an ingenious applet you can play the old games. However if you really want to play the games properly and offline, I suggest that you download a proper spectrum emulator as I did a few months ago. They are available at a site linked to on 80snostalgia.com. The adress is http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Bay/9932/ . Overall this an excellent addition to the site. So we've had the old TV programs and even the old computer technology. What else could there be? Music would be a great addition to the site. In fact there is a section under constuction. It is therefore unavailable at the moment but I am sure it will be in the same vain as other sections with an A-Z of all the classic (*cough*) electro-pop of the 80's. This should be a welcome addition to the site. Even though I hated 80's music with a passion it would be interesting to look back at the music from back in the day. Next is the 80's memories section. This reminds us of the 80's great inventions and crazes such as : Betamax VCRs, Big Trak, BMX Bikes, Choose Your Own Adventure Books, Garbage Pail Kids, Grass (Flee) Darts, Mouse Trap, The Rubik Cube, White Dog Poo(?). Don't know what i'm going on about? Then check out this section. It isn't as extensive as other sections and some of the nostalgia is personal to the sites' creator. For example, s/he has a bit of a phobia of white dog poo since childhood?! The site also has an 80's dictionary. Remember some of the stupid stuff people said during the 80's? We said some def words dudes and dudettes. But take a chill pill and don't have a cow because if you can think of any other words then you can email them to the webmasters. Overall this is a rad section as any dufus can see. Did we say some of this stuff?! You are also available to check out what happened on this d ay throughout the 80's. Did you know that on this day (April 13th) that "Undefeated middleweight boxer Tony Ayala got 35 years on sex assault" and that, "Pope John Paul II met Rome's Chief Rabbi Elio Toaff at Rome synagogue". Very interesting! But seriously, this can be an interesting addition to the site and jog some memories in the cobwebbed area of your mind. You can see what events, births and deaths occured on this day on every year throughout the 80's. "You know you are a true child of the 80's when......" gives pointers to read to see if you really are a child of the 80's. For example: *Your best mate had a soda stream at home and you were jealous. *You owned, or wanted a "Frankie says..." T-shirt. *You have ever danced (or even worse cried) to Kylie & Jason. I guess I really was a child of the 80's. Were you? Also available is a message board and a chat room. Here you can communicate with likeminded 80's lovers (and haters). The message board is very easy and intuitive to use as well as being fast loading. The chat is based on an IRC client. So if you you have one already on your computer it will be easy to use. Otherwise you can use their java based client which has less features and is much slower than if you download the proper version. Anyway, the message board is very good, and I prefer to use this rather than the chat room. Finally there is a links page. This lists all relevent links to ther 80's music, tv and computer sites. All links are worth a look and they are laid out in a easy to use fasion. You are also able to become a member of this site. However, at the moment there are few benefits of doing so and therefore I haven't signed up. Apparently other benefits are going to be added soon so I may rethink my decision. Overall this is a great site with loads and loads of content. Bringing back memories of a ll the old TV programs I used to watch during my childhood brought a tear to my eye! The only slight problem with the site is that with every thing you look up, a link to buy the product and available merchandise appears at the bottom of the screen. I suppose this happens at all sites and they've got to make their money, but this is the only real negative I could think of. If you were alive in the 80's (i'm guessing most people here are older than 11) this is definitely a site that you should check out. Many memories can be brought back about your life over a decade ago. *sniff sniff*.... sorry.....i'm gonna cry *sniff*.

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A call to arms my friends, for all things 80's. This site has it all. Do you remember the rubix cube? Do you remember Mr T and his unfeasably large collection of gold chains? Did you ever wonder, like me, if he was single-handedly keeping the market for gold afloat? Great memories are made of these things. I remember coming home from school and watching The Wonder Years on TV - it seems so long ago, but I smile just thinking about it. It's great to see a website that's so firmly devoted to our recent past instead of the thousands looking to the future. We need to remember where we came from if we are to get where we're going. 80snostalgia.com has a great little section on Classic TV with summaries of each of the programs featured, still images, sound bytes, even some video clips. Remember the Mysterious Cities of Gold? It's there - they've got a nice little video clip of the intro bit. They have the first ever episode of He-Man in Real Video format... That is something you have to watch with your friends - it'll bring tears to your eyes (of laughter). I don't remember it being QUITE so cheesy when I was younger... Thundercats? *snarf snarf* I remember this was really cool for its time - all the cool vehicles they used, all the nifty gadgets they had. The person who has made the site has gone to a lot of effort putting it together. He's written a few personal memories of the 80's - on BMX bikes, Rubix Cubes, Mouse Trap (you know - that game with the plastic bits and the mouse that got caught in the cage) and so on. There's a very amusing 80's Dictionary - look up all those words you cringe to think that you said back then. Another thing that is BRILLIANT is they have a browser-friendly retro-games section. Play Boulderdash to your heart's content. Play Paperboy until you get sick of it for the second time in your life. I'd recommend anyone who's 18 and over (solely because you'll remember the 80's) to go and have a look. It's one of the few sites that makes me genuinely happy because it brings back so many good memories of my childhood. Hope you enjoy it too, Ken

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I was born in 1973, so the pop culture of the 1980s is very close to my heart, as that is when I started to really develop tastes of my own. This web site is fantastic for people like me. It covers all those things that I remember as being great about that decade, although the music section is not yet available, the television, and even some of the terms which were popular at the time. Do you remember COUNT DUCKULA? Or even ULYSSES 31? (I've still never met anyone in real life who ever heard of ULYSSES 31 but I remember watching it and loving it!). Were you someone who ever said "as if" when someone told you something that was blatantly not true or impossible? Did you ever "deck" someone? (You'll find in the 'terms' section of the website that to deck someone was to hit them) DId you ever say something was "heavy"? ("too much!) Were you a "nerd"? If you were or did any of these things then this site is for you and I recommend it wholeheartedly.

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What a great idea, an 80's site. I was just a kid in the 70s and the 90s was, well crap really. If the 80's was your era and 'they don't make songs like those anymore' than this is the site for you. Theres loads of info about TV programs of the time along with Synopses, pictures, sound clips and cCharacters. Loads of 'Speccy' (Spectrum) games which you can play online 80s memories, terms and oaods of news from the time. There's a link to 80s music (yeah!) which is still under construction too. You can search the site for 'stuff' and one of the amusing bits is "You know you are a true child of the 80's when..." Which states you never questioned why the A-Team were always imprisoned in places that had sufficient tools to build an armoured tank, you owned "Frankie says..." T-shirt and you remember when Betamax was at the cutting edge of technology. Oh those were the days :-) The only gripe I have with this site is it has a flashing animated logo which appears wherever you move your mouse pointer to, which means there are little animated images all over your screan which obscures your reading. Only a minor niggle though. Well worth a look.

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I just adore this site. When life is getting too stressful I go to this site and pretend that I'm sitting in front of the TV in my patent shoes. You can wallow in nostalgia for hours (literally) reading about all your favourite childhood heroes. Everyone will head for their favourite section, although you inevitably end up reading everything and wondering how you missed all these groovy programmes. The best thing about this site is the sarcastic tone. Each programme has it's own write up by someone who seems convinced that every programme maker in the 1970/80s was on drugs. The write ups are even funnier when the programme was obviously not a favourite. The author's assertion that Emily was a drug dealer who was hiding her stash in Bagpuss nearly made me fall off my chair with laughter. There are loads of photos on this site as well as information on where you can buy videos and merchandise. The best thing is the downloadable theme tunes. Isn't it worrying how you know all the words to the Hong Kong Phooey theme tune? Every person I have recommended this site too has loved it. Go and visit it. Now.

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I am a child of the 80s. I could spend hours and hours browsing this site, and am constantly surprised by what I dig up. You can use this site in two ways. If you have an argument with your mates or a "tip of the tongue" moment over an 80s TV show, trend, or other phenomenon, then the chances are that this site can save you (or prove you wrong). It's comprehensive and getting more so all the time. Alternatively, if you have no mates to get in an argument with, you can just browse and reminisce. It's like two old biddies in rocking chairs on the porch, both reminiscing about the good old days, but there's no real exchange of information, just a succession of "ah yes... I remember... wasn't it good?" My favourite section has to be the Spectrum games. Ah yes, the good old days, when playability ruled and 3D meant isometric. I'll confess, I just bought a spanky new fast PC, and since I don't have the cash for new PC games, I'm playing loads of Starquake on a Speccy emulator (downloaded via this site). It's more fun than most of the stuff I've seen on Playstations! The only annoying thing is the Rubik Cube pointer thing on the front page - very annoying, get rid of it please!! Thankfully it's only on the first page. If you're aged between 20 and 30 (or so), check out this site and prepare to be lost in the mists of time...

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If, like me, you are a child of the 80s and have fond memories of dancing to Adam and the Ants in a ra-ra with white lipstick across your nose, then 80sNostalgia.com is certainly worth a visit. This site concentrates on the television programmes, music, fashion and trends of the 1980s and, apart from being wonderfully nostalgic, is really rather humourous. There are reviews on the all kids shows I used to watch - Hong Kong Phooey, Bagpuss, Tiswaz (actually I wasn't allowed to watch that), Knight Rider and many more. The reviews of the programmes are mostly rather tongue in cheek (apparently the shopkeeper in Mr Benn was bad for the economy as he taught children that shops didn't need to make a profit, Emily in Bagpuss was a drug dealer and, well, as to the interpersonal relations of the Rainbow gang - you'd better take a look for yourself. The fashion section is actually cringe-worthy - I used to wear most of these things and thought that I was so ultra trendy. That reminds me - there is also a section on the language of the 80s - do on, own up, you used to say "as if" and "wicked" too, didn't you? The music section is not available at the moment as it is being revamped. It was excellent before so should be even better now. There are sound and video clips of all the music and television programmes (do you remember the words to Mysterious Cities of Gold and Dogtanian and the Muskahounds?)and advice on where to track down videos of these wonderful childhood memories (should you acutally want to). There is even on online Rubiks cube if you are feeling really nostalgic but its really fiddly to do (and you can't take the stickers off!) All in all, its a great site. It really takes me back to my childhood/teenage years and is good for a giggle. It doesn't seem to get updated desperately often so is rather limited in entertainment value in terms of repeat visits.